Merritt Research Services has developed strenuous quality control procedures throughout the data gathering, extraction, entry, review and grooming processes. We believe that the reputation of our data relies heavily on the quality control procedures that we employ in each step of the data process.
...Data Gathering
Along with audit request letters, Merritt sends a survey requesting key industry accepted operating statistics. To ensure consistency, we include a set of definitions and the prior year's statistics to function as a guideline for the borrower to use when completing the survey. These steps ensure that our clients are receiving quality operational statistics from which accurate trends can be derived.
...Data Entry
Several data checks are performed when entering the prepared data into the database. An Entry Analyst is the first team member to prepare and extract the data to a spreadsheet. During the preparation and extraction process, the analyst consults the internal procedures manual which has been developed to ensure that every team member is applying like standards. To promote data quality and consistency, the manual contains guidelines on the extraction of every data field in our database.
...The Review Process
To ensure quality control, a senior team member or Review Analyst will review every data field that is entered by another team member. To guarantee continuity, the review process mirrors the initial extraction efforts. The Review Analyst pours through the same document and process as the original Entry Analyst and identifies any discrepancies. If a discrepancy is found, it is discussed and referenced against the procedures manual to arrive at the most appropriate answer. We place great emphasis on the review process, ensuring that our clients receive only the most accurate and objective data.
...Automated Data Audit
Merritt's final quality control procedure utilizes database-wide auditing reports to identify certain mathematically improbable or impossible credit scenarios. The intention of this weekly data audit is to create a final data check to screen and account for certain financial irregularities. This process includes a sequence of more than 145 reports to identify potentially erroneous data. Any data inconsistencies are catalogued and then manually reviewed. This final process of identifying and evaluating uncharacteristic data points serves as an extra level of assurance that our data is thoroughly and methodically examined. When it comes to the data quality, Merritt understands and respects the need for complete accuracy. For this reason, we take pride in our stringent quality control process, and are confident that we provide our clients with the most comprehensive, accurate data possible.